When Alex first came up with the idea of toasted flour, he was thinking about pie, specifically how often people under-cook their pies. There’s nothing worse than soggy, partially raw pie crust, and it’s amazing how often we see just that in restaurants and bakeries. Since it seems clear that we can’t get everyone to embrace the idea of cooking their pies longer—the easiest solution—Alex began to wonder if precooking the flour could add flavor and solve one of his pet peeves.
Of course, the very first thing I made with the flour was a pie, cherry pie to be exact. After I made my dough, I quickly discovered that the gluten is weakened in the toasting process. The first crust simply fell to pieces when I tried to put it in my pie pan. So I chopped it up and made it into streusel. Then I chilled the second piece and treated it like gluten-free pie dough, rolling it out and then pressing it into place when it fell apart. I added the filling, scattered the streusel over the top, and added a generous sprinkling of raw sugar. Of course, I used frozen cherries, so I didn’t get to find out if I could get away with cooking the pie for less time, because it ended up taking longer than usual to bake. Next time I’ll cook the filling first. Still, it was a worthwhile experiment because the rich, caramelly flavors of the toasted flour crust were perfect with the dark, juicy cherries. While it was an exceptionally tender pie crust, there were no complaints from the peanut gallery, and that is a rare day indeed.
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